Wikipedia, formally launched on January 15, 2001, is a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia that contains over 30 million articles written in 287 languages written by volunteers around the world.
Given its wealth of information, has Wikipedia become an acceptable source of information to be used in Research & Development?
Dear Dr Abu -Faraj
Very good question, I think yes Wikipedia is almost an acceptable source of information for Research & Development. However, we can not depend on it alone, and we have to search other references to check whether the informations are almost relevant and consistent. TQ
Really it is a ver good question .I agree with you that Wikipedia is nearly acceptable source of information for Research but you can not depend on it completely
Dear Ziad
Wikipedia is created by volunteers, is administered by a non-profit foundation, and is distributed for free, the normal means of measuring value—such as revenue, market capitalization, and book value—do not directly apply.
Wikipedia is one of the most trafficked sites in the world, with something like 4.3 million articles in English and a total of 22 million articles written in 285 languages.
But how much is it worth for information for research and development ?
Wikipedia is a very useful source of information and can serve as starting to research
Dear all,
Kamal is right, we had a long and significant discussion in an earlier thread.
My answer is as well "no", but I like wikepedia and I´m promoting member of it.
Yes, I agree with Dr.Kamal. Wikipedia is very good platform with lot of of information. At the same time we have plenty of other resources like research articles, books etc to support current research.
Wikipedia can help you to do a preliminary research about a topic that is not so well known by you, but it cannot serve as a reference at any formal publication. Of course that does not downsize the importance of it. Personally I am a frequent user of it and I like it. A possible suggestion for increasing the academic acceptance of Wikipedia could be to act like Scholarpedia, where they sign every article and it has passed a review process.
In any cases Wikipedia take its rightful place in scientific investigations.
Wikipedia is really worthwhile. But it should not replace real science. It gives you first information, orientation and, don´t forget, a lot of sources, papers, hints, literature.
Though we get basic information from Wikipedia as mentioned by Kamal and others science faculty does not agree to cite Wikipedia, it has its own drawbacks.
In my opinion, WIkipedia is acceptable to increase wisdom, but R&D — and, in general, academic science — needs some different paradigm for information / knowledge / skill /analysis dissemination, sharing and learning.
On the other side, if Wikipedia adopted the same paradigms of academic science [peer review, H-index and IF, strong rules for authorships, non-pseudonimous praxis, etx.], it would not still be "Wikipedia".
Two different worlds, each one needful.
—g
I think, it's possible to consider Wikipedia as an opinion of some U.S. people in different subjects, but not as a source of reliable information. Absolutely NOT for Research & Development. Some topics contain simply wrong information. The Wikipedia U.S. administrators who control the Wikipedia content have the same strange opinion about who did what in science, like they have opinion who did what in politics in Europe during last 100 years.
Wikipedia has greatly expanded its work, and recently promoted Good Articles that were added featured on the Main Page as part of Did you know? Everyone can share his/her contribution by submit new pages for consideration. (Archives are grouped by month of Main page appearance).
Therefore it is good source for many people such as students, novice researchers and other inquiries. If you are in specialized field so it’s better to go in depth for the soundly article as an updated and trustfully source.
Wikipedia could be a starting point for gathering information. You are likely to get links to references published in peer reviewed journals. Of course you can't cite Wikipedia articles to support your observations.
Wikipedia can be taken as a page containing some basic information with references. Most of the times I go through the references and from what source they came. Google Scholar can guide someone with related publications.
Dear All:
I would like to thank you for your valuable and constructive contribution to this question.
The Idea is not to reinitiate the same discussion that was open before on this subject matter, but rather to shed light on the evolution of Wikipedia and its position in the scientific world.
Often, we tend to find very relevant information in this repository and thus the question emerged on whether or not it would become a reliable source for R&D usage.
I advise my students to only go to Wiki- to check references as a start for their formal research. I do agree with my colleagues here that another thread contains hundreds of inputs, however, I always stress to my students not to reference Wiki... in their papers.
Dear Hussin, thats a well deliberate method. Let them start with Wiki, they develop interest, and then show the entrance to scientific world.
That's a kewl suggestion @ Hussin and you are right.
So far I haven't come across any journal article that has cited Wiki...
Hussin Hejase wrote: "I advise my students to only go to Wiki- to check references as a start for their formal research."
It's a big mistake, as I believe! It's possible to use Wikipedia as a handbook concrete information with formulas, pictures etc. However many Wikipedia texts contain wrong information about who is author of what discovery. Their "opinion" is confirmed by an especial "list of references".
For example, if you look into corresponding Wikipedia topics, you will find that the Fast Fourier Transforms (that is one kind of Fourier Transforms) was invented by C.F. Gauss with the reference to an article of 3 U.S. engineers Burrus, Johnson, Heideman published in IEEE ASSP MAGAZINE. In this article is a reference to the Gauss paper (published before Fourier published his Transforms) which doesn't contain any form of Fourier Transform and doesn't contain any algorithm at all. But after publishing this wrong information
(that is wrong, it's possible to prove mathematically strong from Gauss paper, it's possible to prove historically that this is wrong information, since Fourier was born after Gauss and was died before Gauss, did Fourier Transforms and published papers in Gauss times, and Gauss never mentioned he did anything like that)
in the Wikipedia, Internet is filled with many notes about that surprisingly Gauss made the first fast algorithm and the first who made FFT. But he didn't
(first FFT was done in 1965-66, by three different groups of researchers independently, the most well-known from them authors are Cooley and Tukey).
Gauss did a lot in mathematics. Frankly speaking, Euler and Gauss did, may be, 70-75 % of modern mathematics. But not first fast algorithm. This is an example of misinformation of many students and people reading Wikipedia, and especially those who are not specialists in this field.
Dear Ekaterina,
thats exact the reason why I gave the hint, start with WIKI for first informations, but change to science so early as possible. I don´t like to find and show wikipedias faults all the time, I know dozens of them in my own fields. But of course everyone has the possibility to try corrections, but its a lot of work.
Dear Hanno,
there are WIKI-mistakes, which are made unintentionally, it's possible to correct them, of course. Unfortunately, a lot of wrong information was written there intentionally.
When I discussed some such mistakes with WIKI-administrators, they not only rejected to correct anything, they even rejected to present another opinion at the corresponding Wikitext (with all references to the reviewed by AMS, Zentralblatt MATH papers). They told me:"The opinion must be ONLY". As far as I understood, for this ONLY opinion they
chosen their own ONE.
I don't think, they mislead into confusion a held researcher. Unfortunately, the young generations which don't read at all and use Internet sources as Bible, can grow poisoned by this information. If you learned from your five years that some discoveries did Mr. A. and B. then in your adulthood will be very difficult to explain you that Mr. A. and B. did nothing and their talents have been overly exaggerated by people who considered Mr.A and B. as identical, in some sense, to yourselves (for example, from the same country).
I think, frankly speaking, such project as Wikipedia must be or absolutely independent (everybody writes what wants without any control), or they must be claimed as a private work/opinion of certain group of people who must indicate their names openly for everybody. Otherwise, it has a completely different, say, flavor.
Dear Ekaterina
I strongly agree with your arguments. When I said that I recommend to my students to look at the references to start with, I also warn them from the integrity of these references as well, meaning that they have to check things up before even use them. Moreover, in Business, references to research papers are clearer than the case you mentioned about Fourier.
All in all, no graduate student of mine is allowed to reference a Wiki paper or piece of information in their research papers.
The number of Wiki related sites is increasing, a fact that makes us the instructors responsible to keep an eye open to these sources as related to our subject of discussion.
i wish to add academics, freely and personally, should take a responsability in reviewing the contents referred to each one's research field. Since we all are conscious of the high consulting level Wikipedia has, and it is possible to change contents, we all should modify and correct all contents we find out wrong.
Even if it is considered primary source, we all know how high school and many university students consult and use Wikipedia, Therefore, perhaps we all should dedicate a few time of ours to offer them good contents.
It is as personal and humble opinion.
Since Wikipedia is an editable platform, I don't recommend it as a reference as well as many websites. The source should be fixed and solid (book, paper, patent, thesis, etc)
Wikipedia is definitely not a reliable source for Research and Development as I have personally witnessed misleading information on the platform. In addition, it is important to note that 'anyone' can edit its content, which means that the reliability of the sources is quasi null or inexistent.
My name is Javier and I am a Wikipedia editor.
Of course Wikipedia cannot be used as a reliable reference, however it is used. I have seen paragraphs written by me (under the nick I use on that platform) used in scientific publications (without citing source, by the way). I can't spend a lot of time on it, but I try to correct mistakes (which are many).
It is very difficult to start editing in an environment where the authority of the specialist in itself does not impress, all editors are equal. You first have to learn to work with modesty and with respect for other editors, even if they are lay people (of any age, origin and training). You end up getting used to dealing with preconceptions and erroneous or obsolete, unreliable or unreliable references, which must be neutralized with other suitable ones. You can also find different schools (European or American, for example, with differences in nomenclature and/or concepts).
Wikipedia is a source of information that is imposed on us by its enormous social impact, we have not chosen it, but it surrounds us everywhere (students, teachers, journalists, politicians ...) and scientists should get more involved, each one in their own ambit.
Be careful, editing in Wikipedia can create addition. You start out trying to teach others but you really end up learning a lot.
My best greetings,
Dear Ziad O. Abu-Faraj,
Definitely, we can take the information in Wikipedia as a summarized guide which we can use as a start point to clarify the whole image about some topic.
We can not rely on it as scientific evidence; they are biased, lacks reliable sources, and incomplete in most of the topics.
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